by Tia Siren
“I’m doing okay. Had a good conversation last week with Blair and just relaxed this weekend,” she said. “Doesn’t feel like Monday since I don’t have anywhere to be.”
“Good. You need some good rest and relaxation,” I said. “So, I was wondering if you wanted to sit down this week and really talk about stuff. I know it’s all a bit confusing, and I’m trying to give you your space, but I don’t want to go too long without hashing all of this out.”
“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “I don’t know. You’re right about the confusion part. My head has been spinning from all this. There are so many complex angles to it, and so many things to think about, you know?”
“I understand,” I said. “My head has been spinning too. I just can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you either,” she said. “But I still don’t know if I’m ready to talk about everything. I think I need more time to process and figure out what’s most important right now.”
“I get it,” I said, trying to be supportive. “I want you to ultimately make the best decision for you. I care about you, and I want you to be happy, even if it isn’t exactly what I was hoping for. Just know that I’m here if you need me, even if it’s to shoot the shit about something completely unrelated. We could take a trip to the Statue of Liberty again and try to kill pigeons with a slingshot.”
“Ha, that was a fun day. I think you got three, and I got negative one since I hit myself in the face with the rock I was trying to shoot.”
I laughed. “I counted that as one. You hit something, right?”
“I guess you’re right, but I had that mark on my face for three weeks.” She giggled.
“It was a battle scar,” I said. “It made you look tough.”
“Great. Anyway, I’m gonna get back to this movie. I appreciate you being supportive about time, and I’ll call you if I need you.”
“All right,” I said. “Try to relax and have a good day.”
“You too,” she said.
We hung up, and I sat there trying to decide whether to file that conversation under the win category or the loss. It wasn’t a terrible discussion. She just wasn’t ready to take it any further than that. I wanted to be supportive of whatever she needed. I put down my phone and looked around my room, deciding that maybe it was time I went to talk to my mother. She had been calling me nonstop, and I needed to give her the information about my father and what he’d done to the Spencer family, especially since I was pretty much set up and ready to go with my own company.
I got up and got dressed, making sure to put on a nice polo and slacks so my mother wouldn’t dislike my beard so much. My father would be in business meetings all day since it was Monday, which was good because he was the last person I wanted to talk to. I would be able to sit down and really talk to my mother without him being there to alter her reaction to things. She was always softer and more willing to listen when it was the two of us. I hailed a cab, and we made our way out of the city to the outskirts of town where their giant house sat behind locked gates. The guard at the front let me through, and I got out and walked slowly toward the front door. I was more nervous than ever to talk to my own mother.
When I went inside, I found my mother in the kitchen making a cup of coffee. She looked up at me and then back down at her cup with no change in her expression. I waited to see if she would talk, but nothing but silence came from her.
“Mom, I’d really like for us to sit down and talk,” I said. “I’m tired of fighting with you. I love you too much, and I have something I want to talk to you about.”
“I suppose,” she said, giving me the cold shoulder. “In the living room. I don’t want to give the housekeeping staff any more gossip than they already have to work with from this house.”
I followed her into the living room and sat down in the chair across from her. She sipped her coffee and stared up at me. I pulled out the file I had brought and handed it to her.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Just look at it,” I said. “You know what those government-signed documents should look like.”
“All right.” She sighed, putting down her coffee and opening the file.
It wasn’t easy to be patient as she went through each page in the file until she came to the forged paperwork. She pulled it out and held it up to the light and then set it back down, looking off into space. I could tell she was inside her own thoughts, trying to reconcile what she was looking at with what she knew.
“That is a forged document giving my father, your husband, the right to sell off pieces of Spencer Hotels without Mr. Spencer’s permission,” I said. “Did you know anything about that?”
She snapped her head back at me angrily and then looked down at the paper. She was in complete shock. It wasn’t often that my mother didn’t have something to say about just about anything, but in that moment, nothing came from her lips. I could barely even recognize the look on her face.
“Mother,” I said, grabbing her attention. “Did you know about that?”
“Are you nuts?” she said. “Of course I didn’t know about this. This is beyond anything I have ever seen your father do. God, how did I miss this? I knew when he started selling pieces of the hotel that something was going on. I could just sense it, but I never thought he would stoop to this level. This is a mess, a complete and total mess. Do the Spencers know about this?”
“Yes. Ava figured it out before I even found the document,” I said.
“God,” she replied. “Don’t you understand what is at stake here if the press gets ahold of this? Our family name is at stake. Our reputation both in the business and outside it would be completely ruined.”
“Wait. Your concern is not that Dad destroyed a man’s company and put his family in harm’s way? Your concern is your reputation?” I said. “What about the fact that they struggle to put food on the table or that Ava has to model at mattress stores to pay her way through college? Doesn’t any of that matter to you?”
“Of course it does,” she said. “But I have to think like your father so I’m prepared for what he will say to me.”
“Who gives a damn what he says? Mom, open your eyes,” I said, leaning forward and taking her hand. “You deserve so much better than my asshole father. If you would just take a real look around you and finally leave him, you would realize how much you’re really worth. I know it; everyone around you knows it except Dad, but you can’t recognize it.”
She put her hands to her face and let out a deep breath, shaking her head. When she pulled her hands away, tears were streaming down her face. I stood up and walked over to her, bending down beside her.
“I know,” she sobbed. “I know how much I have lost myself over the years. I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror anymore. Your father has drained me of any human decency I had. I just don’t know if I can live on my own. I’m getting older. I’m used to this house and taking care of your father.”
“Mom, you would be so much better off on your own,” I said, “taking care of yourself for a change, doing what you want to do, and not being dragged into shit like this. This file represents exactly what kind of man my father is. We are only as good as our worst trait, and this is pretty low, even for him. On top of that, he tried to make Ava look like a stalker and ruin her life even more because he didn’t want the truth to come out.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“I’ll give you some time to yourself,” I said, standing up. “But I want you to take a good long look in the mirror and think about what kind of woman you are. I’m going to take Dad down for this and every other shitty thing he’s done. You need to decide which side of the fence you want to be standing on when it’s all said and done.”
I kissed her on the top of the head and walked out of the house to the cab waiting outside for me. As we drove away, I couldn’t help feeling guilty for leaving her there like that, but I couldn’t sugarcoat it anymo
re. She had a decision to make. I had already made mine.
Chapter 32
Ava
I sat and thought about things for a long time on Monday. I thought about my life, my future, my feelings for Mason, and my relationship with my family. I thought about what Blair said to me in the coffee shop and how much sense it made to stand up for myself and what I wanted for the first time in my life. I was tired of being someone else’s puppet. I was tired of being treated like what I wanted didn’t matter.
I sat in my living room Monday night, replaying every moment of the time Mason and I had spent together since we’d reunited. I wanted to be with Mason, probably more than I had ever wanted anything else in my life. On Tuesday when I woke up, I reevaluated that and knew it was still what I wanted. I didn’t want to be alone, but even more than that, I didn’t want to be without him. There wasn’t a man in the world who could make me feel the way he did, and I knew he was my future, no matter how difficult it was going to be to get there.
I wanted to tell Mason everything I’d figured out. I wanted to run into his arms and just be with him, but I had other things to resolve first. I had to get my parents to a point where they were accepting of the relationship between us. They didn’t have to forgive his parents for everything they had done. That was too much to ask, especially since it wasn’t something even I could promise, but they had to come to terms with the idea of Mason and me being together, having a future together, and being in love. The way they were acting was as bad, if not worse, than the way Mason’s parents had reacted. At least Mason’s mother wanted him in her life and was reaching out to him to bring him back in. My parents had completely abandoned me like I had said I was dating Mr. York himself. It was time for them to grow out of that rich, snobbish attitude and realize they were missing out on something really amazing: a relationship with me and with Mason, who they knew, no matter how many times they tried to tell themselves otherwise, was a good man. He might have made mistakes, but who hadn’t? And most importantly, he was trying to correct those mistakes and the ones his father had made. He was abandoning any relationship with his father to make things right, and that spoke volumes about his character.
I was tired of the foolishness, and I wasn’t going to let them behave that way anymore. Mason was not his father in any way. He was a kind man with a good heart, and when he realized what had been done to us, he took it upon his shoulders to make things right. My parents were important to me, but so was Mason, and it was imperative for any future relationship that I find common ground with them on the subject.
I jumped in my car and headed over to the grocery store my father worked at. I had tried my mom on her cell, and she refused to answer that or any texts from me. There was no way she was even going to open the door for me, much less sit down and have a rational conversation. My father was the one I really needed to talk to anyway. It was his legacy that was destroyed, and it would ultimately be his voice that repaired the rift between the three of us. I knew my father would let me talk even if he disagreed with what I said.
I parked down the street from the grocery store and made my way inside. It was a small natural foods grocer that catered their food and their pricing to the Brooklyn area. I wandered through the aisles, trying to find him, but didn’t see him anywhere. I walked to the back of the store and peeked into the stockroom. There he was.
“Pssst,” I whispered.
“Ava,” my father said, looking up. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you, please,” I said.
“All right. In my office,” he said, leading me into a small room to the side. “Have a seat. I don’t really know what to say to you.”
“Just hear me out. That’s all,” I said. “You let the tabloids be judge and jury, and Mom refused to even let me explain.”
“That’s fair,” he said.
“I’m sorry things have turned out this way. It was never my intention,” I said. “I’m done seeking revenge on Mason’s family. I have been this revenge-driven, crazy woman for too long. Look what it has done to us.”
“But that has been your whole world since you were a freshman in college,” he said. “Why now?”
“Because I realized what it’s been costing me,” I said. “I realized that I let my hatred take over my life. I have missed the majority of my twenties, refusing to go out, not having relationships, and burying myself in school so that one day I could try to take down an entire empire. It was foolish and turned me into someone I don’t even recognize anymore. I can feel this dark seed of hate in my chest every time I think about my plan. In your twenties, you’re supposed to be making mistakes, having fun, going out, creating your future. I was too busy being buried in books and plans to even think about being a person. I have let ten years of my life slip by, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it.”
“You’re almost done with your law degree,” he said. “That’s something to show.”
“I never even wanted to be a lawyer.” I shook my head. “I sucked myself into it in order to make this plan a reality. I didn’t pursue a career that was my dream. I pursued a means to an end.”
“Why did you wait so long to come to me about this?”
“I wanted justice for you,” I said. “But I realize now that it’s impossible really.”
“Those are my burdens, not yours,” he said. “What are your real dreams, Ava?”
“The funny thing is? I have no idea. But I do know that I’m not passionate about being a lawyer, and my motivation and drive was hate, and that is not the right reason to do something. That would have made me as bad as Mr. York.”
“God, Ava, I have always been concerned with your obsession with the cause, but I never knew you gave up your whole life for it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry that you had to live your life this way. I should have been better at shielding you from everything that happened. It happened to all of us, but it was not your job to clean it all up. I moved on, and I left you still standing there as they took the sign off the front of Spencer Hotels. And the worst part is, I didn’t even notice until now.”
“I refused to move from that spot, Dad,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not all your fault.”
“Let me ask you this,” he said, sitting back. “Are you still in love with Mason York?”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “I... You know what? I’m just going to say it. Yes, I am in love with Mason. I have been in love with him since I was little. He went down the wrong path in his father’s world, but he turned it around. He no longer works for his father. He quit, and he’s starting a company of his own.”
“Really,” my dad said, leaning back. “And this is the guy for you?”
I smiled. “I think so.”
“Then if he’s important to you, I’d like to hear more about it,” he said. “I’m going to have to talk your mother off a ledge when I get home, but I don’t think it’ll be hard. I know she misses you. I would like the four of us to have dinner, get to know each other again, and maybe try to start fresh after a decade of hate and anger.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” He chuckled. “I’m a bitter old man stuck in a world I’d worked so hard to stay out of, but in the end, it made me realize how much I appreciate everything. I don’t want you to have regrets. I don’t want you to miss out on love, opportunities—anything—just because you inherited my inability to let something go after so long. Mason didn’t have anything to do with his father’s actions. He was just a kid. There’s no reason for the way I’ve treated him all these years.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” I said, jumping up and running over to him. “I’ll arrange everything.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “Give me time to talk to your mom tonight, and call me with the details. I know this has all been difficult, but I’m really glad you showed up here today. I’m really glad you were able to understand what you were doing with your life and at least sort of what you want o
ut of the future. You deserve better than what you’ve given yourself, and you need to stop blaming yourself for everything that went wrong in my life.”
“I will try,” I said. “I’m gonna go get started on the plans and leave you to your work. Oh, and did you get that promotion?”
“I sure did,” he said. “I’m regional manager now. Well, it’s only a title until the other stores are built, but the pay was a sizeable increase.”
“I’m proud of you, Daddy. That’s a real accomplishment,” I said, kissing his cheek. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He nodded, and I left the store, excitement running through me. This time it had nothing to do with the hotel or any of that. It had to do with me and what I wanted. I pulled out my phone and called Mason.
“Hey,” he said, surprised.
“Hey,” I said happily. “I have some good news.”
“Nice. I like good news,” he said.
“I went to my dad’s job and sat down with him and told him that I wanted things to change,” I said. “I told him how I felt about you, how I wanted you in my life, and he was open to it and wants to have dinner with us.”
“That’s amazing, especially the part about you wanting to be with me,” he said with a chuckle.
I laughed. “Oh, I left that out when I was talking to you. Sorry. So, you’re okay with dinner?”
“Of course I am,” he said.
“Yay,” I squealed. “I’m gonna go start planning.”
“Okay,” he said. “Call me later.”
“I will,” I said, hanging up.
I was ecstatic. I felt like my life might finally start turning around. Weight lifted off my shoulders as I started thinking about myself and not about revenge on Mason’s dad. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted Mason to be in it. Now all I had to do was successfully make it through dinner and we would be in the clear.
Chapter 33
Mason
It took me a little bit—a lot of talking, and a lot of my mother wavering back and forth—but I had convinced her to come to dinner with me, Ava, and her parents. I didn’t know if it was a good idea, to be honest, but I had to give it a try. It was all great and grand to have Ava’s parents accept us as a couple, but the family feud had to end. It had to stop ruling everyone’s lives. I understood the anger, but if I could get my mom back into the Spencers’ lives, I could get her the life she deserved.
